Galatians 3:1 - Is it finished...?

"Oh mindless Galatians, who bewitched you, who according to eyes Jesus Christ was openly set forth as having been crucified?"

-Seeing is believing, right?  Jesus Christ was crucified and somehow, these Galatians saw it.  Well, not the actual event itself, but the crucifixion of the son of God - which was fairly recent history - was re-created for them visually, in some way or fashion, the portrayal was clearly combined with an explanation of the meaning and the significance of that blessed event, along with an invitation to respond, and they believed.  They saw with the eyes of their heart, and that seeing was believing.  They trusted in Jesus, in His death on the Cross for the forgiveness of their sins.  They made what skeptics and cynics and moderns and educateds would call a foolish decision, but it was the wisest, most sensible decision they could have made.

-Fast forward a bit, and now they are fools.  Mindless - literally, Paul says they have lost their minds.  They are apparently deserting the Gospel (Galatians 1.6), the very truth which Paul himself preached to them (Galatians 1.11), and are embracing a contrary message.  They have been bewitched.  Someone has somehow cast an evil spell on them to get them to begin thinking that there is something they must now do (circumcision?) in order to gain or keep God’s favor and right standing with Him.  Baptism?  Attendance?  Quiet times?  Tithing?  A specified dress code, or church membership?  Well-meaning (and not-so-well-meaning) leaders and followers have throughout the centuries added and layered all kinds of works-based merit to the by-grace-through-faith simplicity of the pure Gospel message.  When Jesus bled out on that cruel Roman cross, He declared, ‘It is finished’ (John 19.30).  Once-and-for-all.  But is it?  Is it really?  'Cuz if it is, then there is nothing to add, nothing more we must ever do in order to satisfy our heavenly Father, for us to be able to rest in that place where in His eyes we have done everything right (again, solely because of what Jesus did on the cross).  So many things which even believers are foolishly tempted to think we must do in order to maintain right standing with God.  And even though they had as much as seen it, these Galatian believers were listening to someone was trying to lead them away from that, down a primrose path of enslavement to the law.  They had lost their minds!  Next verse...